


water makes its way back to water

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [300]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Complex feelings about celebration and peace, Flashback, Foreboding, Freedom, Gen, Mithrim, Past Slavery, Rumil was an incredibly good man and he deserved better at all times, title from a poem by Patricia Liu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26369590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: The year dies quietly.
Relationships: Fëanor | Curufinwë & Rúmil of Tirion, Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor & Rúmil of Tirion
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [300]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	water makes its way back to water

**Author's Note:**

> Happy 300 fics everyone! That's 100 in six months & since lockdown started. Thank you for all the support. Every comment is read, reread, cherished, and discussed amongst the co-authors. Y'all are the greatest and we hope this series has (ironically, because it's so angsty) brightened this awful year a bit!

The year dies quietly.

In a matter of months, four stone walls have formed a fort. The friends who share its shelter have named it. First in jest, they took up Dougal’s word for the surrounding hill— _mith rim,_ he said admiringly when they came upon. _Mith_ meaning mighty, in the old Scots tongue.

In time, they liked the name, one and all. They praised the mirrored basin of the blue-bodied lake and the clean, stiff wind with the humble words of travelers finding a home at last.

And wonder of wonders, this motley band—met at abolition-friendly waypoints and through strokes of good luck mingled with bad—liked Rumil.

When winter nips and the new year comes, there is talk of celebration. Few wish to keep Christmas, as most left their beliefs in the East, or, in the case of Mithrim’s Jewish and Native inhabitants, believe something different entirely. Though the start of the year is not universally agreed on, honoring it is deemed an attractive prospect, and feasting commences after the long days of labors.

It was Rumil who suggested that they burn pine boughs. Rumil, too, encouraged them to murmur the names of their lost, dead or living, over the flames.

Yet when merriment has spread throughout the ranks of independent men and women, who place no master over themselves, and who trust to none but proven friends, Rumil slips away.

His year dies quietly.

His neck has grown used to its new lightness. Sitting here alone, cross-legged on the cold, dry flat where they intend to build a stable, he can see the moon shining on the lake.

He can see the moon shining on his mother.

She crept into the house-quarters the night before she was sent away.

She said he was clever with his hands, and that that would save him. She kissed his hands and his face, and he clung to her, all of eleven years old.

He had already struggled to understand why she must work in the field, and sleep in the low, muddy cabins he played in as a child, while he was allowed more comfortable quarters in the house. He had already struggled to understand that distance.

It was harder, a thousand times harder, to grasp her going forever.

He never quite accepted, until this moment of strange and mournful peace, that he shall not see her again. Rumil is twenty-seven years old. He has been his own man all his life, secretly.

He has been freed of an iron collar and an iron future for less than twelve months.

The first master said he would not sell his mapmaker, his favorite boy with the clever hands. But times were hard—that was why he had sold Rumil’s mother, after all. Times were hard. Only the nearby Bauglir plantation flourished, and _that_ was despite Old Man Sulimo having no taste for slaves or cotton, or the woman he’d married, in the end. Her fortune and her name were on the place. On the grounds. On the backs of her slaves.

Old Man Sulimo went north and died. It was said that one son went with him.

It was known that one son stayed, and that son stayed _rich_.

 _Rumil_ , said the first master, smiling that smile that could not save a mother, or did not wish to. _Come in and stand up tall. This is Master Bauglir. You shall make maps for him, now._

That tell-tale sliver of the moon, like a stroke of a pen drawn in contemplative hesitation or in memory, wanders behind the clouds again. Rumil links his fingers around his knees. He will always be grateful to Feanor, for what he did.

He will also question whether Feanor, or any other man who believes in justice but has not suffered its lack, can truly know what a burden such gratitude is.

Then again, Feanor will have his own troubles. For one thing, in their time together, and in their letters since, Feanor has always refused to be afraid.

That is a mistake.

_He never forgets_ , Rumil tried to say. _You must understand, my friend. He will not forget you._

 _What,_ asked Feanor, in his bright and beautiful arrogance, _Could he possibly do to me?_

The year dies quietly. Rumil whispered a few names into the fragrant pine-smoke, but not every name. He does not want to pretend to know, at any time, the whole sum of what and who can be lost.


End file.
